Editorial pubs.acs.org/cm
How We Choose Cover Images
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well as for more modest reasons, including jazzing up a talk, an office wall, or one’s CV. Science and art are strongly intertwined, and expressing one’s science through art is, simply put, fundamentally satisfying. Since January of 2014, every issue has been graced with a new cover image, which means that we publish 24 new images every year. Six randomly chosen covers from 2015 are shown in Figure 1, and it is clear that there is a wide diversity of styles, concepts, and artistic tastes. We are very often asked how we choose our cover images, and on occasion, we have encountered questions as to whether such decisions are influenced by politics and/or bias toward “big names”. We want to emphasize that we are proud of every paper published in our journal, and thus we are open to all authors informing us that they have, or are working on, an image that would highlight their newly accepted paper on the cover. We actually do not have a process, as we work on a more ad hoc basis, and thus images can be solicited and chosen through a number of ways: (i) We specifically invite all early career authors of “Up-andComing” perspectives to consider submitting an accompanying cover image.2 (ii) Authors of manuscripts in revision or of manuscripts that have just been accepted can submit proposed cover art by email. (iii) Authors can include proposed cover art with a revised manuscript. (iv) We may peruse the Just Accepted manuscripts, note a particularly beautiful or timely piece of work, and invite the authors to submit a cover image.3 Every image is vetted by us and by graphical designers at ACS, all of whom have input as to whether an image is suitable for the cover. We cannot promise that every submitted image will be deemed cover-ready, but some require no further work and are rapidly accepted, while others are improved with additional attention; most are, however, ultimately successful. There are times when we have cover images booked several issues in advance, and thus we cannot always use a proposed piece of artwork if it would delay publication and pagination of the accompanying article too far into the future (it would sit as an ASAP in the meantime). Other times, however, an author may not complete a cover image by the deadline, and thus we may require a cover image in short order. To summarize, if you would like to submit a piece of cover art, please let us know as soon as possible after your manuscript is accepted. We would be honored to consider it.
Downloaded by 190.129.106.179 on August 25, 2015 | http://pubs.acs.org Publication Date (Web): August 25, 2015 | doi: 10.1021/acs.chemmater.5b03094
ow that few papers are read in magazine format these days, we do not have a true physical journal cover. The cover image has, however, evolved to become the representative image of a journal issue, and we advertise it heavily via social media, including Twitter (@ChemMater), Facebook,1 and our email campaigns. We believe that the continuing popularity of cover images stems from the opportunity to take artistic license to expand upon the beauty of one’s science, to summarize a scientific concept in an entirely visual way, as
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Jillian M. Buriak, Editor-in-Chief
AUTHOR INFORMATION
Notes
Views expressed in this editorial are those of the author and not necessarily the views of the ACS. Figure 1. Six cover images from 2015 representing a diversity of materials chemistry. © 2015 American Chemical Society
Published: August 25, 2015 5451
DOI: 10.1021/acs.chemmater.5b03094 Chem. Mater. 2015, 27, 5451−5452
Chemistry of Materials
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Editorial
REFERENCES
Downloaded by 190.129.106.179 on August 25, 2015 | http://pubs.acs.org Publication Date (Web): August 25, 2015 | doi: 10.1021/acs.chemmater.5b03094
(1) Link to our Chemistry of Materials Facebook account: https:// www.facebook.com/pages/Chemistry-of-Materials/ 1443453362564143. (2) Buriak, J. M. Our New “Up-and-Coming Series” of Perspectives. Chem. Mater. 2014, 26, 3027−3027. (3) Link to our Just Accepted manuscripts: http://pubs.acs.org/toc/ cmatex/0/ja.
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DOI: 10.1021/acs.chemmater.5b03094 Chem. Mater. 2015, 27, 5451−5452
